38 posts tagged “cake decorating”
The second wedding cake of the weekend was much bigger and was at a semi posh local hotel. There were only 250 guests planned, but we made a total of 600 servings of cake for them. The bride’s cake served 255 people, the groom’s cake another 100 or so and then they ordered 250 cupcakes on top of all that. They packaged the cupcakes in delightful little boxes for the guests to take home with them. What a lovely idea. (Unless you are the poor schlep making 250 identical cupcakes!)
The Bride’s cake was a lovely red velvet cake, iced with butter cream and decorated in black colored chocolate swirls. (Red velvet is a pain to ice, it keeps wanting to "bleed" crumbs into the icing!) It was a striking look, the contrast of the colors was very pleasing. I think it would have been a lovely presentation once they started cutting all that red cake! I don’t like red velvet myself, I just feel like I’m doing something horrible to my body by eating that much food color (and it really takes a lot!) but there is no doubt that it is a pretty and delicious cake!
I got all five tiers set in place and all the details finished and then looked around for the flowers for the top of the cake. The florist had cut all the little orchids off the stem and my heart sank. What a stupid move that was, but they clearly didn’t know any better. So I started scouting the centerpieces on the tables to find stems of stuff that I could borrow for the top of the cake. I snipped a few twigs here and there and combined with the orchid blossoms, it turned out very pretty.
The Groom’s cake was his frat emblem on a full sheet cake that was marble white/chocolate inside. It turned out nicely I thought.
And then there were the cupcakes. The Loser cupcakes. At every turn we screwed up this order!
The first screw up happened when the elves took the order. The client wanted an “L” on each cupcake, and the order said they needed to be made out of fondant. BL told me to use a cookie cutter to make them and it wouldn’t be a big deal. I took a look at that cookie cutter and I wondered to myself… it would look better for a child’s event than for a ritzy wedding, but I knew it was the only way to do 250 fondant “L’s” without wanting to jump from the nearest bridge. (Doing a bunch of “L’s” out of Icing would have been quicker and easier but someone up-sold the client fondant – so that’s what I was stuck making.) And with the amount of cake orders I had in addition to the weddings, I was about to pull out my hair anyway. So I started in making these infernal “L’s.” The bride’s mother happened by and BL picked up one of the “L’s” to go show her. I was about half way through making them and I stopped BL by simply saying… “Don’t ask a question I don’t want the answer to!” She looked a little surprised, looked at the fondant “L” in her hand and looked at me, realizing what I was saying. She laughed, put down the “L” and went back to work laughing. I made about 275 of those stupid things the first time around and had to come back and make more because they were fragile and I broke quite a few of them.
Boss Lady is the baker and she just couldn’t keep up this week. (For good reason – because the bread elf is gone and the brownie/cookie elf was on vacation.) So I didn’t start seeing those cup cakes until it had already become crunch time. They were red velvet cake in silver cupcake liners. I had decorated the first batch and as I moved them some went flying off the board, like penguins into the ocean. Those little silver liners are slippery! I lost quite a few with that stupid human trick but it turned out that only one was beyond fixing. So I used some non-slip stuff (the same stuff that they use under rugs to keep them from sliding around) and worked late into the night finishing up the first round of cupcakes. But that was the beginning.
When one of the elves came in the next morning and looked at the cupcakes with all those little “L’s” on them… she dubbed them “the loser cupcakes” complete with full tilt New Yorker attitude and sign language. The name stuck. BL passed an edict that the client must NOT know that we named them thus, so the name really stuck.
I was stressing because the rest of the cupcakes weren’t even baked and they are time consuming. So she started the first batch but forgot to add in the rising agent and she didn’t figure it out until they were in the oven so the next batch of cupcakes didn’t rise. They tasted a little strange and they were very short and dense. She didn’t have much time to bake replacement cupcakes but she finally decided that she would at least try. It turned out that we still had to use some of the red hocky puck cupcakes to finish out the 250, but at least they were finished.
The bride’s Mom and Dad came in to package up the cupcakes. Each cupcake got the royal treatment in a red box with tissue paper and a ribbon with the bride and groom’s names on it. Only the Bride’s Mom wasn’t crazy about my little cookie cutter “L’s.” I didn’t blame her, I didn’t think much of them by that point myself. But it was the morning of the wedding and there they were, all 250 of them. BL scoured the order to see if anyone had written “cursive L” anywhere but there was nothing. It was sad because making cursive “L’s” out of icing would have been so much easier for me. The Bride’s dad just shook his head and told his wife “It is what it is” and everyone decided to be happy about it. (He was a freakin genius!)
They wanted to move the cart that I had put all the cupcakes on. But then they realized that there was no way to get the cart through that part of the bakery, it would just be easier to move them tray by tray. So the Bride’s mom picked up the one tray with the extras on it (that didn’t have the non-slip plastic on it) and I had to catch cupcakes like I was Michael Jordan. Loser cupcakes just kept trying to jump.
It is done and over. I imagine that most of the cupcakes in their pretty boxes have been devoured. It was a beautiful wedding and I’m certain that the new Mr. and Mrs. “L” are enjoying a lovely honeymoon somewhere marvelous. On the other hand, I don’t want to see another red velvet cake for a very long time. And 250 cupcakes? Never again!
And just for the record, it's the cupcakes that were losers, not the people. The people were great. And if you happen to know the lovely couple, remember that I was sworn to secrecy. :) (for all the good that did!) LOL!
This little bitty wedding cake that turned out so cute. This wedding party had about 15 guests and was in a local restaurant. The cake icing was tinted a ginger color to match a paint chip (yes a paint chip from the paint department) that the bride gave us. Then swirls of ivory butter cream finished off the look. It was a cute little thing, it almost looked like it hadn’t quite grown up yet. There was a medallion with a monogram on it that also went on the cake but I forgot to take it with me on the delivery, and then when I went back to deliver that element I forgot to take the camera. Oh well, it was cute without it. The whole cake wasn't much taller than 12 inches, plus the topper. It's an 8 inch, 6 inch and a 4 inch. I'm pleased with it. I think the folks at the restaurant were going to move it, so I hope they didn't destroy it doing that. Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't my problem if something happens after I leave.
For a bridal shower where the bride hates pastel colors. They asked for fun, funky and bright.
I was finishing up the order and Boss Lady was standing there looking at the cake. And I said "Yah know, I'd just like to do a row of ants all the way around the border of the cake." She squeeled and laughed and told me to do it. And she promised to take the heat if the client complained. :D So those little black dashes...
This was an interesting project. A woman brought in her cake pan from Williams and Sonoma. They make beautiful things, but nothing a bakery would ever touch just because of the impractical nature of the equipment. This was a case in point. The client wanted the end product to look like the photo on the cake pan. Well, it was naked cake with a few candies glued to it. Cute, but hardly practical. Let that baby sit out for an hour and it would be hard and stale and nasty to eat. Cute but nasty. Hardly the reputation a bakery really needs. So we finally settled upon the idea of making them from Chocolate cake and putting on a very thin coat of chocolate ganache to coat them so that they would not dry out. Some of the detail from the pan was lost but not too bad. So I went back in with the icing to bring out the details and the client was very happy with how it turned out. And who wouldn’t love a chocolate cake frosted in chocolate ganache? Yummmmm!
I made this cute little baby shower cake for a lovely Momma who was tall and blonde and really beautiful with her little baby bump. And they loved how it turned out! I took the designs from the napkin they showed me and made the medallion based on a scrap booking quote. "Little hands and little feet make our life so very sweet."
The bride brought us a napkin with a really pretty monogram on it. So I made a fondant medallion and carefully copied the monogram, bit by tedious bit. It is hand painted on the dried fondant with a mixture of vodka, food color and luster dust to match the color of the ribbon. I wish I would have gotten a photo of the napkin I copied but it is there on the table on the lower left of the photo. The reception was in a barn on a lake in a rural area, very picturesque. And the barn was decorated beautifully with lots of flowers and those pretty blue table cloths. I was happy with how the cake turned out. As far as wedding cakes go, the kind with ribbon and a few simple borders are just about as easy as it gets. Carefully place a few flowers and it’s done.
Last week sure had some ups and downs. I had one really difficult day with my Mom and I was pretty furious this morning, but in spite of all that it was really a lovely week.
I spent the day with my Mom on Thursday which was a really mixed bag. We got a lot of chocolate made for the fund raiser but it wasn’t much fun as she nailed me at every turn with the different things she did not approve of. So most of the flavors I’ll be serving have not passed the Mother Darling taste test. Oh well. Guess my guests will have to find a way to muddle through in spite of the chocolate horrors I’ll be serving. I’ll spare you the run down of the “bland” and “yuck” and “you’ve got to be kidding me” flavors. She did like the marzipan (the one formula I did not make.) I’ll post photos of the finished kinds when I get a moment. I already had a back ache and spending the day with her just made the pain radiate a little lower than usual. Poor hubby got to hear all about it when I got home.
I got a bit of a shocker this morning when I realized that another event had been scheduled in the fellowship hall for the night of our fund raiser this Saturday. The church secretary made a mistake and both of us planned to use the kitchen and fellowship hall area. The church secretary never said she was sorry, only that she hated that it happened. I have struggled at other times to know how to deal with her so this didn’t really help. Well, I didn’t get much out of the sermon as I tried to think through our options. After the service the lady from the other event and I got together and walked around the building considering our options. We had finally come to the conclusion that they’d just have their event in a private home until her husband showed up and said no way, they were having it at church. Oh well. So on the day that we’re throwing this huge party, the kitchen is going to be in use from about 3:00 – 6:30 and then their mess will get cleaned up somewhere around 8:00. And we are supposed to work around that for our 7:00 – 9:00 event. I was furious when I found out because I had this carefully planned out and had reserved the kitchen and fellowship hall both Friday and Saturday all day long. We had both done exactly what we were supposed to do in reserving the date with the secretary. Only this time it just didn’t take. I was not mean or rude to anyone, but neither was I fake-nice about how I felt about the situation.
Hubby and I had a delightful dinner at one of my favorite local places Friday night. We ended up having one of the most interesting conversations ever and it was a lovely “date.” I’m happy to be married to a guy who is so good at talking with me about important things. I am crazy about him.
Saturday I finished up a wedding cake and BL and I delivered it to a picturesque barn on a lake. It was one of those hip trendy not-really-a-barn-at-all kind of barns. Everything was wrapped in tulle and Christmas lights with a pristine hardwood floor. LOL! The cake turned out beautifully and I’ll post photos when I get the time.
In other news. I’m in the process of handing my Cake Decorating job over to a teen who will graduate from High School this Summer. Yeah, I’m almost 40 and pretty darn good at the whole cake decorating gig. And I’m passing the – uh – decorating bag – to a teen! Does that seem strange to anyone besides me? She’s a beautiful girl with a delightful disposition and I think it will be good for everyone. She can’t do what I can but she’s a teen and everyone has to start somewhere. We’ve been working on a strangled shoe string with BL refusing to order the needed supplies so I’ve really nailed her hide a few times this week when I didn’t have the stuff I needed to do the work. I’m hoping to be able to leave the new girl with the equipment to do the job. On the other hand. It is just not my problem.
Saturday evening we spent with some friends and had a very nice time. I had no idea that one couple has one adopted child. They had worked at an adoption from Bolivia and something happened and it didn’t work out. So they put their name on a domestic list while they were considering their options and *poof!* they got a domestic assignment. So instead of a little brown boy, he’s pastel. Then they had a pregnancy that actually went to full term and the little boy acquired a matching sister. Lovely family. I knew they were older than most parents but had no idea what their story was.
After lunch this afternoon with friends, we sat around and talked at length about things like pacifism, politics and a variety of other faith and praxis issues. Very interesting and engaging conversation though I fear that we may have freaked out the turkey farmer who was listening. He’s such a darling creature and I adore him, but I can only imagine what he thought of the conversation.
Looking forward to this week will involve finishing up lots and lots of details for the big “Art & Chocolate” event Saturday. I’ll be wrapping up the work on the art I’ll have for sale. And of course there is the chocolate to finish up. There are tons of details and things to iron out so it’s going to be a very busy week. Hubby’s parents will show up late Friday to help out, so that adds a certain amount of additional work to get the house ready for guests in addition to everything else. I hope I can get all the needed details rounded up. I wish I knew how many people to plan for. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
And finally (insert trumpet blast here) I’m going to start a new business. I’ve got an appointment to take work to a gallery in H’burg that has been a very profitable venue for me in the past. That will be good. I decided to pass on the local farmer’s market since they’d only allow the soap that I make and not the jewelry. And there is a marvelous little boutique in H’burg that I’ll try out as well. I think my more expensive work will be a lovely fit there. So I’m going to start getting my work out there and see how people respond and take it as it comes. There are lots of local and regional venues to choose from, it’s only a matter of time. I’m pretty excited about that though. And I’m blessed to have a hubby who is willing to see me give this a shot again. It really is time.
I decorated a wedding cake this weekend. It was the first one of the season. The bride wore a white gown with apple red beaded embroidery. She wanted the cake to match. So I studied the photographs of the dress and set about making an icing version of the design. I’m happy with how it turned out. It would have been prettier with lots of flowers and greenery on top, but they chose that tiny little figure for the top. Oh well, it still looked pretty good. I wish I could have seen her in the dress with the cake. I’ll bet that was nice.
The groom’s nickname is “Yeti” because he is apparently rather hairy. So they asked for a groom’s cake that had a yeti on the cake, like Harry and the Henderson’s. So I looked up Harry and put him on the groom’s cake. I was happy with how he turned out looking kind of cute. I started giggling as I was finishing up the cake because it kind of looks like a friend of mine. LOL!
And they had only set up one cake table, so Harry had to share the table with the bride's cake. The bride's cake is white and the inside of the groom's cake is chocolate with raspberry filling. Yummm!!!
I made a bunch of these last week for the holiday. Lots and lots of bunnies. They are little icing bunnies with pecan ears. Very quick and fun to make. The eyes on the chocolate ones show up better than the eyes on the white ones. Kids loved um!
A client came in wanting a cake in the shape of a Porsche with some extra detailing in the sponsor decals. So I set about building a Porsche. From chocolate cake and butter cream icing.
Day One:
I spent some time with the small model the client provided. I treated it like I was building an Architectural model and each quarter inch on the model became an inch on the cake. It took about 4 hours to get the cake carved and iced with a crumb coat of butter cream icing in the shape of the car. This was refrigerated overnight and in the morning I had a nice firm surface to work with.
I also created a few things from fondant that needed to dry overnight. I made a small driver’s side mirror, a tail pipe, door handles, and headlights from grey fondant and left them out to dry. I also made four tires out of black fondant. These hardened overnight.
Day Two:
I started by carving out a portion of the underbody and removing the cake where the tires would go and creating wheel wells. Then I iced all of the lower part of the car and wheel wells in black and added the front fenders.
The next step was to ice the rest of the cake in yellow so I matched the color in a photograph the client brought in. I carefully piped on the yellow butter cream and smoothed it around the curves of the car with a palette knife. It was a time consuming process but it worked out nicely. Then I rolled out grey fondant for the windows. This bakery does not use an airbrush so I had to leave the windows plain but I did glaze them to make them shine. After the windows were on I finished off the roof icing and the body of the car, now it was all about the details.
The next step was to outline the doors and panels of glass and the front and rear hoods. I put on the fondant headlights and fondant tires with butter cream rims. The fenders went on next, followed by the lights in front and back and on the sides. I added the fondant door handles, mirror, and tail pipe after I was sure they were dry enough to stick into the cake without breaking. I made a fondant license plate for the back and a tiny little Porsche emblem for the front hood. It was starting to look like a car. And clients in the bakery were beginning to take notice.
Day Three:
The basic car was finished, and it was time to deal with the logo decals. There was quite a list of logos and other details she wanted added to the cake so I had to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The top got a grocery store logo, the front hood had a car dealer company logo, the back got a tire company logo. There were two other logos on the rear fenders. We don’t have a “copy cake machine” (which is like an overhead projector) so I created each of these logos freehand. The client wanted a number 40 on each door for her son’s 40th birthday and his name above each door.
The final touch was to mix a finely powered silver into an edible medium and paint the chrome on the car with a small artist’s brush. It’s the kind of thing that is really fun to do because it is a small thing that makes a big difference in how the cake looks. So the handles, mirror, bumpers, tail pipe and hub caps all got a nice coat of “chrome.” Even the tiny little “911S” on the back got chrome.
I added windshield wipers a little later – after I had taken the last photographs. At the client’s request I also added some additional detailing to the tiny little 3/8 inch Porsche emblem on the front hood.
The client picked up the cake on Saturday and asked if there was any way to “petrify” a cake because they wanted to be able to keep it. She was really pleased with how it turned out and paid the big price tag without even blinking. Apparently they had no plan to cut it or eat it even though it is delicious chocolate cake inside. I saw her again this morning and the cake has not been cut